Opinion

Fathers, Sons And Soccer

Seven years ago, my father and I went to see a new Robert Duvall movie called A Shot at Glory, which was about a fictional soccer team, Kilnockie, as they struggled to reach their first Scottish Cup Final. It was a forgettable film and, in an unjust world, we dismissed the inevitable happy ending as improbable fiction.

But truth, it turns out, is equally implausible. Recently, my hometown club, Queen of the South (not a pejorative term, rather the name of the team from Dumfries, a town of 30,000 in southwest Scotland) made it to the Scottish Cup Final for the first time in their 89-year history, where they will face the mighty Glasgow Rangers.

Emerging from the Wilderness Years (1919-2008) has prompted a bewildering range of emotions about the central role these perennial long shots have played in my life, particularly in my relationship with my father, who passed away last August.

Legendary Scottish soccer coach Bill Shankly (on whom Mr. Duvall's character was modelled) was once quoted as saying: "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that."

For Shanks this was a truism -- he was once outraged at having been accused of taking his wife to see an unglamorous Lancashire side, Rochdale, for their anniversary. "Of course, not. It was her birthday. Would I have got married in the football season? Anyway, it was Rochdale reserves," he grouched.

In some respects this was true of my father, a man who took his future wife to a minor English soccer match on their second date, the first having been to a wrestling bout.

But for me, there have been periods of disenchantment during the progression from childhood to fatherhood. I was first taken to Palmerston Park to watch Queens in the early 1970s by my father, when they'd fallen on particularly hard times. Cold, wet, windy afternoons were warmed only by cups of steaming Bovril (a biohazard-like beef drink), while "Chopper" Dickson maimed his opponents before hoofing the ball out of the ground. Still, much like Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen, who were so poor they drank out of rolled up newspaper, we were happy in those days.

I loved Queens so much, they loved me back. They made me a ball boy, responsible for retrieving the errant shots of hackers like Chopper. We were permitted into the locker room to sweep up the mud from their boots and clean the scum from the giant bath that looked like its water supply came direct from the River Ganges. We even got paid -- 15 pence (about 30¢) and a Scotch pie.

In 1979-1980, Queens placed bottom but one of the entire Scottish football ladder and it was suddenly uncool to support the Doonhamers (pronounced Doon-haimers because people from Dumfries would go "doon hame" from Glasgow on weekends). One urban legend has it that a disillusioned announcer even introduced the crowd to the players, so few were the numbers in attendance. At the age of 13, I fell out of love with Queens -- and, coincidentally, round about the same time I tried cigarettes, alcohol and civil disobedience at home.

My father and I grew close again the moment I left home for university, and closer still when my demands on his net income ended. But Queens and I never reconciled. They were still my "hame team" but I was living in Glasgow and watching Celtic and Rangers play Europe's elite. I had traded up from my provincial roots.

Then 10 years ago, I moved to Canada and Queens once again assumed a pivotal role in my life. My mid-day phone calls with my Dad every Saturday became an institution--a post-mortem on the Queens' game and a 15-minute discussion on the latest football flotsam would be concluded with off-hand inquiry into my mother's welfare. Maybe it was because we didn't have much else to talk about but it was a point of real connection that I still miss acutely.

These exchanges were even responsible for encouraging my father into cyberspace at a time when he couldn't even use a bank auto-teller. Queens were playing an important cup game and I checked the live score online to discover they were leading. I phoned home at half-time and was greeted with a scoff of disbelief. "I'd have heard the roar," said the old man, possible given we could see the Palmerston flood-lights from our house. The next day, my mother called to say he'd just had thousands of dollars of computer equipment installed.

I'm left to conclude he was something of a jinx on the Queens. He passed away last August and they have been virtually unbeatable ever since. When they won the quarter-final game I found his e-mail address on my Black-Berry -- I've been unable to delete it -- and sent him a note to let him know we made it. I think he got it -- at any rate, it didn't bounce back as undeliverable.

Maybe it's just as well he wasn't around to watch the semi-final against Aberdeen last Saturday. He had a notoriously nervous stomach and this was a white knuckle ride. Three times Queens led against their more illustrious opponents, three times Aberdeen equalized. Then, with half an hour to go, Queens scored a fourth and Aberdeen had nothing left to give.

So we're off to the final in Glasgow next month, my six-year-old son James and I. We'll both be wearing our Queens' jerseys with pride, just as I did half-a-lifetime ago when I first went to see them with my own Dad. It's only a game but as any sports fan knows, in many ways, it's much more important than that.